More info on league

First off, sorry if I sounded a little harsh in the e-mail and blog. I think I was a) pissed at the Nuggets in the 4th Q (about when I wrote those) and b) I was pissed at myself because of being afraid to catch a foul ball at yesterday's Rockies' game. I decided not to catch it at the last minute. That's probably why I said so much stuff about "being afraid" of the softball.

Anyway, onto more league news: I forgot to say one thing about sportability.com When you go to the website, type in Denver as the search criteria and all of the rec leagues will pop up. Once our league is on there, click the icon next to the league name to get everything about our league. We should be listed as: '09 Summer Vanderbilt Friday Mixed. Again, our team name will be "Master Batters 4" as there are other teams named Master Batters, but none in our league. We're safe there.

If you played with the NJC team last summer in Aurora, most of the rules carry over, i.e. walking a male will give him 2nd base and the following female can take first if she wants; no crossing the outfield line when a female is at bat, etc. The one change I noticed is scoring. We're going to touch home plate like any other base. No line three feet to the right of home.

Manager's meeting news

So I went to the manager's meeting tonight and I have the basic info for everyone: We are playing at Vanderbilt Park on Friday nights this summer. Our schedule will not be officially posted until probably Monday (at the latest). I can't stress enough how much they wanted to stress that we go to www.sportability.com to get all of our game information. They will even update our schedule on there up to 2 hours before our game (in case of a rain out). Our league will have 8 teams. We will play 7 games against those other 7 teams, then 3 TBD games based on the standings and then the final 2 games as either a playoff (if we're in 1st-4th places) or just a couple more games if we finish under 4th. There is a game on July 3. I also can't stress enough how much you should depend on this blog for info. I will update this with our games when I know of any changes or new events. Pretty soon I will stop having this sent to everyone's e-mail and just trust that you know how to use the internet. We have so many people on the team, I am not going to keep track of everyone like a teacher. Check this blog a couple times a week.

Our first game will definitely be on Friday June 5, so I am hoping to get a REAL practice in before then, maybe 2. I want everyone to feel comfortable with actually hitting the ball, fielding the ball, and knowing the rules. We should meet next week on either Tuesday or Wednesday. I will ask around the Comp Lab and then base the practice place/day/time on what everyone there can do. PLEASE go to this website and read the information packet for our league so you don't totally fuck us over for the year: http://www.denvergov.org/recreation3/SoftballintheCity/tabid/432744/Default.aspx

I don't want to be a "manager" or "coach" for our "fun league" team and micro-manage, but if you are scared of every hit ball or don't know how to play, please back out. Someone getting extremely frustrated at themselves every moment of every game is not fun for you or us.

Onto the fun part of our league: drinking. Alcohol is allowed, extremely encouraged by me, and kinda encouraged by the league. It isn't allowed on the field or in dugouts, but the guy at the meeting said our park is laid out pretty well to drink just outside the dugouts. If you do bring booze: ONLY CANS!! We will forfeit games if there is glass at the field.

T-shirt update: After a few SNAFUs, we are set and I'll have the shirts by game 1 (June 5). They will be white with navy sleeves, numbers and, the Taboot Art logo. Taboot Art is the place I got the shirts and they will be our sponsor this summer. They have some really cool shirts, sweatshirts and posters at their place if you want to check them out (Colfax and Milwaukee).

I am keeping track of who has paid and not paid on this blog. Remember it's $45. That includes registration and shirt fees.

That's all I have for now. I'll update this by Friday so I can tell you when we will get together for practice.

E-mail me if you have any Q's.

Practice Tomorrow (Wed.)/Shirts

If any of you can come by for a practice tomorrow night, that'd be great. We're going over to Lindsley Park at 12th and Cherry (Just north of Rose Hosp. and VA) at 6:30. Bring your gloves, balls, bats and softballs. We'll probably try to get in one or two more practices before our first game (which will probably be June 5). There is no set schedule yet and we haven't been assigned which park we're going to play at (Either Vanderbilt Pk at Santa Fe and I-25; or Ruby Hill at Santa Fe and Florida just west of Overland GC). I have a manger's meeting next week and we'll probably get the schedules then.

As for shirts, I think I have everybody's size and number. I'm going over to Taboot Art on Colfax by my condo to get them. They're going to be under $10 a shirt. They only have three colors, but it looks like the majority of us want the gray and blue shirts. It will be done with those colors. I'm going to ask that everyone pays me $45 ($35 registration, $10 shirt)

Here's the Softball league's website: http://www.denvergov.org/recreation3/SoftballintheCity/tabid/432744/Default.aspx

Practice Wed. (May 20)

I didn't mean tonight if that's want anyone thought. SOrry if there's a mix up.

Jersey numbers/Practice

People seem to care for now about the shirts. I will wait until next week to order them (once I know everyone is on board). We're going with the "baseball style" shirt (see right>>) but we need to choose a color. VOTE ON THE COLOR!! Those will come out to be about $12/shirt. If you want your name on the shirt, it will be an add'l $4.50/shirt. There is a list on the lower right on here of who has chosen which numbers. We'll do a first come, first serve system of number assignment. Either tell me what number you want, or post a comment. I need your size as well.

Maybe we can get together next week and hit a few balls and meet and greet. The easiest place is over here by Nat'l Jewish since most of us work over here. How about 6:30p at Lindsley Park (12th and Cherry) on Wednesday the 20th?

Since an e-mail only goes out to 10 of you, make sure this gets forwarded/mentioned to everyone who doesn't get the e-mails (i.e Wade, Nicolas, Felicia, Quyhn, etc.)

Blog posting/Team update

If anyone wants to write/vote on the blog, make sure you "accept" the invitation for blog permissions. An e-mail is sent out to up to 10 people whenever something has been posted. Since we have more than 10 people, I've deleted a few e-mails since spouses/sig. others are on the team and since most of us work together, we can just tell each other. Soon if everyone just checks this blog regularly, I'll delete any of the e-mails through the blog.

I sent in the registration today for the team. Our team name as of right now is the Master Batters. Hopefully none of you jerks is offended.

As of right now, we're leaning toward getting the screen printed shirts. Probably about $13/shirt. That will be on top of the league registration. We seem to have a bigger team again (about 17 people), but since the games are on Fridays in the summer, people will be travelling and won't make every game. With 17 on the team, the fees will be $35/person. Add the shirts and we're talking under $50 for the season per person. I put down my credit card so once we have the final roster and shirts, I'll have a final number for you to pay me.

Softball Shirts?

Softball rules state that while we are not required to have matching shirts, we must have a distinguishable number on our shirts. I was thinking about getting matching shirts anyway. We have a couple of options:

1. Go to Walmart/Target and buy a bunch of plain T's and just iron on numbers or Sharpie the numbers on.
2. Get in touch with a screen printing company (which I've e-mailed two for a price quote) and just buy a plain shirt (or two-color baseball style shirt) and just have them put numbers on the back. One company (www.customink.com) was about $10/shirt and $2.50 for the numbers. (Names are an add'l $4.50)
3. Vote >>>>>>>
   

What are everyone's thoughts on these? We still need a team name by Monday. We don't need a roster or colors until game 1. The head of the softball leagues said that it is $600/team and we play 12 games from June 1 -August 21. So for the Friday games, we're looking at the first game being June 5.

Getting acquainted

Welcome to your official Summer Softball Website. I'm going to try to keep this up all summer for us. I've never done a blog post on this website. I'm hoping we can all post stuff on here.

First two orders of business:
A) Team name: Master Batters
B) A roster listing as of right now and their affiliation with everyone.

1. Brock (interim manager): Comp lab at NJH
   
2. Elena: Comp Lab at NJH
3. Seth: Comp Lab at NJH
4. Nicole/Colee: Comp lab at NJH
5. Courtney: Client Services at NJH
6. Nicolas: Courtney's boyfriend
7. Eric: Comp lab at NJH
8. Michelle: Comp lab at NJH
9. Isaiah: Michelle's husband
10. Stacy: Friend of Seth and Brock from grad school
11. Kyle P: same ^
    
12. Kyle B: same ^
    
13. Ron: Receiving at NJH
14. Felicia: Ron's wife
15. Christina: comp Lab at NJH
16. Wade: Christina's husband
17. Quyhn: Comp Lab at NJH (former)
18. Sean: Comp Lab at NJH
19. Becca: Friend of Brock
20. Jen: Friend of Brock